Staying Employed with Multiple Sclerosis

A topic which seems to thread itself into the tapestry of nearly all of our conversations at our Life with MS blog is employment.

In these economic times, finding and/or keeping a job is difficult for “typical” people. For we of the compromised myelin, the idea of finding new employment is daunting, while the thought of losing our jobs (and oft, thus our health insurance) is downright frightening!

There are so many questions we have about MS and employment: Who do we tell and when? How much do we disclose? What are reasonable accommodations to request? What does discrimination look like? When do we say when?

There is no shortage of questions…the problem is: Who do we ask?

That one, I can answer!

I am in the process of writing a two-hour television program/webcast which I’ll host entitled, “Staying In The Employment Game” as part of the “MS A-Z” television series. The program will be televised live with a studio audience from Seattle and webcasted directly to a computer screen near you on April 6th, from 8:00 to 10:00 PM (PDT).

The viewing options will be many. You can watch the TV broadcast live (in western Washington) on the University of Washington Television Network. The webcast will also be sent out over the Internet via the University and The Research Channel and live on their Web sites for webcasting/podcasting downloads.

As in the past, with our MS webcasts, I would like to mine the vast resources of the Life With MS blog community for questions. So many of us are living the very scenario which leads to the questions I’ll be asking of our panel of experts. Please tell me what you’d like to know!

I should mention players of the panel. Ray Hecox, is the President of KING5 TV and Belo Broadcasting and lives with MS, Dr. Kurt Johnson is a researcher into quality of life issues and MS and, Andrea Brenneke is an attorney specializing in employment law and ADA issues. Together we will discuss their areas of expertise as well as take questions live from our studio audience as well as via phone and e-mail.

For those of you living in the Seattle area, there are a limited number of spaces available for the studio audience. If you are interested, sign up as those seats will fill quickly.

I really look forward to your responses as to your employment issues and questions. It will help me direct our panel to real topics that are important to all of us living with MS and hopefully help us all stay in the employment game.

UPDATE: If you would like to attend the live event you can follow the directions on this page. You’ll need to sign into your National MS Society account to RSVP or create a new account if you don’t have one already. Hope to see you there!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Trevis Gleason

Trevis L. Gleason is a food journalist and published author, an award-winning chef and culinary instructor who has taught at institutions such as Cornell University, New England Culinary Institute and...read more